Confusion and chaos reigned in Westminster yesterday, as a pantomime played out inside the House of Commons, in farcical scenes reminiscent of Theresa May’s travails in search of a Brexit deal.
Complaints of political point-scoring; procedural irregularities; a walkout of MPs: all this dominated the debate. Meanwhile, the actual question of Israel’s mass murder in Gaza fell by the wayside.
Parliamentary cant
In their writings, Marx and Engels frequently referred to the British establishment’s predilection for ‘cant’: hypocritical, self-righteous rhetoric, used to muddy the waters and hide the ruling class’ real motivations.
The political representatives of British capitalism are masters in this dark art, they noted. “Nowhere in Europe does canonised hypocrisy – ‘cant’ – play such a role as in Great Britain,” stated Leon Trotsky.
Yesterday’s proceedings, in this respect, were a classic example of British parliamentary cant, with out-of-touch politicians showing their utter contempt for ordinary people and the devastating, urgent matters on the agenda.
Conventions and allegations
The position of the slithering, supine Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, is now in doubt, following allegations that – under pressure from Labour – he deliberately sabotaged the SNP’s opposition motion.
Breaking with established convention, Sir Hoyle – knighted for his services to the ruling class – accepted a Labour amendment to the SNP’s Gaza ceasefire motion.
In doing so, Hoyle helped fellow knight of the realm Keir Starmer avoid another embarrassing rebellion from his own benches, as was seen last November when the SNP previously moved a parliamentary motion for a ceasefire.
The Speaker’s decision sparked outrage. The SNP were moving an opposition day motion. Yet Hoyle accepted both another opposition party’s amendment, as well as one from the government.
All this was highly unusual according to the inviolable arrangements that dictate parliamentary business. As such, complaints were raised from across the House that Sir Hoyle was making the rules up as he went along (to think!) – possibly as the result of a shady bargain with the Labour leader to remain in the Speaker’s chair under the next government.
Entitled and out-of-touch
The fact that over 30,000 civilians have been murdered in Gaza by Israel’s campaign of terror was all but forgotten by these entitled ladies and gentlemen.
Characteristically, MPs thought only of themselves. Many lamented the tense atmosphere around the issue of Palestine. Others revealed their disdain for their own constituents, decrying the protests and pressures they have faced from local voters.
Instead, these ‘representatives’ suggested that they should be able to speak and vote in favour of Israel’s brutal bloodletting, without fear that their ‘safety’ might be placed at risk by the anger of the unwashed masses.
At one point, MPs even voted on the extraordinary measure to ‘sit in private’ – that is, to turn off the cameras and conduct the affairs of bourgeois democracy in secret!
This suggestion was not passed. But while these respectable statesmen threw a tantrum, thousands of members of the public – attempting to access Westminster Hall to lobby their elected representatives – were locked out in the rain.
This kind of cry-bully behaviour is typical of capitalists politicians. These lackeys of the ruling class see themselves as part of an exclusive club of untouchables, lording it over the lowly commoners; taking the ‘hard decisions’ while the rest of us suffer in silence. Their arrogance makes you sick.
Coalition of protest
The SNP’s original motion plainly called for an “immediate ceasefire”. The amendments from Labour and the Tories, however, competed with each other over who could water-down this demand the most, and thereby offer a timid rebuke to Netanyahu’s Zionist regime.
Just a few days prior, senior Labour politicians — like shadow foreign secretary David Lammy — were lecturing us that a parliamentary vote on a ceasefire was meaningless anyway, and that Labour could not support this.
That was before Speaker Hoyle gave the Labour benches an out, accepting Starmer’s tabled amendment for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”.
This echoed the words of a motion that was permitted to pass the Scottish Labour conference on 17 February.
Under pressure from the SNP’s consistent calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, Labour’s Scottish branch had already broken with Sir Starmer’s open defence of Israeli slaughter by voting for an SNP motion at Holyrood in November.
Thousands descended on the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow last weekend to protest against the party’s scandalous stance in relation to Gaza. Palestine solidarity activists, trade unionists, climate campaigners, and others all marched together to call on Starmer’s Labour to change its position.
This coalition of protesters, all betrayed by Labour’s right-wing trajectory, is perhaps a premonition of things to come, when Starmer gains the keys to Number 10 later this year.
Masters in Washington
What was it that actually caused the Labour leaders to turn around and meekly support a ceasefire?
Lammy was bold enough to put on the parliamentary record that his party’s stance was only altered after consultation with the US State Department.
The exact same can be said of the Tory government, which now supports an “immediate humanitarian pause” in Gaza, and is opposed to Israel’s impending assault on Rafah, echoing President Biden.
Where Starmer and Sunak get their marching orders is no mystery. The foreign policy of the British ruling class and its representatives is made in Washington, not Westminster.
Anger and action
The sham of Britain’s bourgeois ‘democracy’ was on full display yesterday.
This cohort of crooked careerists piously lecture us about the hallowed traditions of the Commons, the cut-and-thrust of Parliament, and so on.
But when it comes to a matter of life and death for two million trapped-and-starving people, these rogues and reprobates descend into a pitiful row with one another, demanding that democracy be curtailed so that nobody’s feelings get hurt. It is enough to make the blood boil.
No wonder that rage against all politicians and parties – and against their decrepit system – is welling up from deep within the working class.
It is not enough to be indignant, however. This discontent and bitterness requires an organised expression.
That is why we are building the Revolutionary Communist Party: to turn anger into action, and prepare the working class to sweep the capitalists and their rotten system into the rubbish heap.
